1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bidirectional pivot structure, and more particularly to a bidirectional pivot structure with a function of rotating in both horizontal and vertical directions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, in design of the consuming electronic products having a flip-cover, such as a portable computer, a mobile phone, an electronic dictionary, a portable multimedia player, a digital image capturing device, such as a digital camera or an automobile display, the main body is disposed at a side of the product and pivotally connected with the cover portion by a rotation axis, so that the cover portion can be opened or closed relative to the main body. Therefore, the rotation axis is a major factor for determining the quality of the product. In fact, a good rotation axis not only has necessarily good holding effect, but also is designed with simple elements and convenient assembly, which are important factors when it comes to consideration.
Therefore, manufacturers keep improving their products and have developed a rotation axis which can achieve the objective of bidirectional rotation by single element. For example, “Pivot device” is disclosed in TW Granted Patent Publication No. 573910, which is applied between a screen and a main body of an electronic device. By means of the rotating relation between a rotary seat and a fixed seat, the screen can be rotated within a limited angle along the latitudinal direction, and two legs disposed on the rotary seat can be rotated within a limited angle along the longitudinal direction relatively to the rotary seat. By this way, a single pivot device can provide for more effective usage to users. However, in view of the technical content of the case, the rotary seat includes a tube with a slot which is disposed separately on both sides of a main body and the tube is provided for an insert end of a combining leg to pass, so that combining leg is able to rotate freely. The fixed seat includes a position limiting slice and a strip fixing slice which are respectively installed above and under the rotation axis. After the upper section of the rotation axis is passed through the main body, a plurality of springs and resilient plates are fitted to constitute the pivot device.
In the aforementioned case, the horizontal direction rotation is implemented by a sheathed rotation axis using radial friction, and the vertical direction rotation is implemented by concatenate rotation axis using axial friction. However, as to the simplification of components and the convenience of the assembly (as shown in the drawings of the patent application), if such pivot device is applied in a digital camera, then the its volume must be reduced significantly, and the concatenate rotation axis in vertical direction requires lots of components and a complicated assembly procedure, and it causes a much higher manufacture cost, and a higher level of difficulty to reduce the volume that awaits for further improvement.
In view of the shortcomings of the prior art, the inventor of the present invention based on years of experience to conduct extensive researches and experiments, and finally developed a bidirectional pivot structure to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art.